Longitudinal follow up of health outcomes of the 1998 Swissair 111 crash

Objectives: The focus of this study was to investigate health risks associated with passive disaster exposures, experienced by community members living in the vicinity of the Swissair Flight 111 disaster response site in Saint Margaret's Bay, off the east coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. Passive disaster exposure involved the constant media presence, presence of crash victims' family members, and the transformation of the community into a large-scale rescue and recovery operation site. Methods: Hospital admissions and outpatient visits data, for three passively exposed communities, from the disaster area and two from sites in close proximity to, and further away from, the disaster area, were analyzed using Poisson regression and generalized estimating equation methods. Period prevalence and incidence changes of disaster-related health conditions for the three-year pre- to two-year post-disaster periods were analyzed. Results: The findings revealed significant differences in the utilization of outpatient care and in the incidence and prevalence of respiratory, neurological, cardiovascular, mental, gastro-intestinal, endocrine, and immunological diseases for the affected communities. Characteristics of communities that we found significantly associated with disaster-related health conditions were: adolescents, seniors, men, low income, high alcohol-consumers, and living in proximity to the disaster area. Conclusion: The health effects of community-level exposure to recovery operations related to a major air crash extends up to two years after the crash and includes surrounding communities even further away from the crash site. In particular, men, adolescents, and seniors, and low income communities are most strongly impacted.